Liar Liar
by xgossamerstars
Summary: He had always had a reputation for lying.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, and I don't own Liar Liar (Burn in Hell) by the Used.  
A/N: Companion fic to Suffocation, but you don't have to read Suffocation to understand.**

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//_Liar, liar, pants on fire...and the pills go down, gets you higher..._// 

Kakashi sat in his apartment—his own apartment, the apartment he hadn't inhabited in months and hadn't bothered selling, either—with two empty bottles of sake in front of him, a full on behind those, and a half-empty one in front of him. His bleary eyes were even more unfocused than usual as he stared absently into the little waves of heat that rose from the stove. He had begun to cook his supper a little while ago, but the sake had made him forget exactly how long to leave it in the oven. So for now, he gazed into the heat ripples and thought.

He had always had a reputation for lying. Even before Team Seven, he had often been late to meetings with Sandaime and his excuses of being lost on the path of life and having to help little old ladies with their treed cats were not believed. Of course it had only gotten worse with Team Seven, because that was something regular, something that required him to be there on a daily basis. For Kakashi, daily punctuality was impossible. So the lies had multiplied.

By the time he and Iruka got around to going out together for the first time, lying was second nature to him. When Iruka asked him a question he didn't want to answer, he simply lied—it did no harm, right? It had never hurt Team Seven, and thought it might have been a small source of irritation for Sandaime—and then Godaime—it had never hurt either of them. So why should it hurt Iruka?

So when he began seeing Hayate behind Iruka's back—not physically cheating on Iruka, but not precisely being entirely faithful, either—he saw no reason why he shouldn't lie when he was asked where he'd been. He realized quickly enough that leaving Iruka for Hayate would be stupid, and honestly, he wasn't exactly sure why he wanted to leave Iruka in the first place. Now, however, everything would be okay. He wouldn't leave Iruka, and Iruka didn't have to know about his sort-of fling with Hayate.

That is, until Iruka confronted him with the scrolls the two had written each other, planning to meet and have dinner and discussing the breakup with Iruka that would never happen.

Kakashi closed his eyes and took another shot of sake. That memory still haunted him, though it had been several days. Iruka had said that they should take a break—that he needed his space. So, Kakashi gave it to him, disappearing back to his apartment until Iruka would come for him.

If Iruka ever came for him.

When he suddenly became hot, Kakashi attributed to the sake and took off his jounin vest. He had turned away from the stove and was standing, shakily, to go to his room and pass out.

At that moment, the stove, and subsequently most of the kitchen, erupted in flames.

_//Liar liar, house on fire, and the glass tastes messy...chew it better, bet your tummy hurts you...// _

The window exploded from the sudden burst of heat and the glass sprayed into Kakashi's open mouth. He gagged as the shards cut his throat, and cried out as they crunched in his teeth. A vague thought that this would be an excellent torture tactic flitted through his mind, but was instantly squashed when the fire reached the sake bottles.

His table was on fire, and Kakashi was now trapped in the other end of the apartment, away from the door.

_//You're gonna burn in Hell, fucking liar...//_

He knew that he had to get out; the problem was, his drunken mind wasn't exactly sure how. The fire was slowly spreading, engulfing his sitting room, and all Kakashi could do was back stupidly away from it, allowing the heat to corner him in his own bedroom. There was still the matter of the glass shards slicing their way down his throat and the internal bleeding he was most certainly experiencing, as well.

Then he saw the window.

As fast as a drunken ninja can move, Kakashi sprinted to the window, punching it out—forgetting, of course, that doing so would imbed yet more shards of glass into his body—and leapt out, landing in a less than graceful manner. Something in his mind told him that he should alert the fire department, but he wasn't precisely sure where it was located. Not to mention the fact that he was anything but sober. He was also starting to cough a bit from inhaling the smoke.

The ninja part of his mind—the part that wasn't as drunk—knew that he needed to get away from the apartment and the smoke as quickly as he could. He leapt into the air, landing on one of the telephone wires that led to the Hokage's tower. He never made it; a slip in his drunken step caused him to loose his balance and he fell, catching his shirt on the wooden pole that held the wires.

A moment later, he passed out.

_//Liar liar pants on fire...hanging from a telephone wire...//_

xXx

"Where is he?!"

Iruka rushed into the hospital, half dressed, hair down, and in a state of utter panic. He had heard that Kakashi's apartment had caught fire, and he had heard the jounin had suffered serious injuries because of it. The fire had been quickly put out and no one else had been hurt, but Iruka took little comfort in that. He could only think of the fact that he had sent Kakashi back to his own apartment, and that this had happened shortly afterward, and he blamed himself for all of it.

Tsunade merely pointed to the room that was Kakashi's. She had found the jounin dangling from the pole, unconscious—_Thanks be to Kami that he had drunk so much sake...if he had been awake to feel the pain of those cuts in his esophagus...—_and suffering from severe smoke inhalation and internal bleeding. He was now on a breathing machine and his chakra levels were way below par. It seemed to Tsunade that he had little will to live, and she hoped that seeing Iruka would bring back some of his old determination.

"Kakashi?" Iruka whispered, laying his hand on the jounin's forehead. "Kakashi, can you hear me?"

Kakashi's eye flickered open—his Sharingan was covered with a bandage to prevent unnecessary chakra depletion—and he squinted a little. "Ruki-baby?"

"I'm here, Kakashi, and I'm sorry...I'm so sorry, I never should have sent you back, never..." Iruka said softly, smoothing the unruly silver hair.

"'S'not your fault," Kakashi mumbled. "'S'mine...liar...lied to you..."

"I know, Kakashi, I know," Iruka muttered, "But I forgive you. I forgive you, and I want you to come home with me, but first you have to get through this, okay? You have to get through this and get better so you can come home to me."

"Home...to Ruki...mmm." Kakashi nuzzled Iruka's shoulder sleepily.

Nearby, the chakra monitor and the heart monitor peaked just a little more...

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**A/N: So...reviews?**


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